


first, then - lightning bug au shorts

by CurlicueCal



Series: lightning bug au [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefly Verse, Black Romance, Captain!Jane, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Pale Companion!Karkat, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-17 04:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1374061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurlicueCal/pseuds/CurlicueCal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of shorts written for "first time" prompts for my <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/67093">firefly-verse.</a>  These stand alone and range from drabbles to short fics.</p>
<p>1) Gamkar, First time Karkat seriously wanted to pap that.<br/>2) Karkat & Jane, First time they met<br/>3) Dirk & Jane, First time he knew he'd never leave her<br/>4) Dirk & Jane, First time they celebrated a birthday on ship<br/>5) Davekat, First kiss<br/>6) Dirk & Caliborn & Jane, First time they met<br/>7) pale Companion!kat, First time Karkat refused a client<br/>8) Dirk & Jake, First kiss<br/>9) Porrim & Karkat, First time pale Companion lessons <i>(*new*)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Karkat & Gamzee

**Author's Note:**

> These started short and kind of... got out of hand. Hope you enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[theunvanquishedzims](http://theunvanquishedzims.tumblr.com/) asked: Karkat and Gamzee, the first time Karkat seriously wanted to pap that._

"Your shirt’s on inside-out."  
  
Gamzee takes a moment to look up from whatever injustice he is currently enacting on the fine art of victual provisionment.  He tilts his head agreeably at you.  “What’s that, brother?”  
  
You make fists out of your hands and frown back at him.  You’re already regretting saying anything.  “Your fibrous thorax encasment.  Is on.  Dermal-side backwards.  You fucking nitwit.”  
  
He blinks at you, looks down at the offending garment.  Blinks several more times, in revelation.  You cannot believe this guy is real.  “Well, check that out.  You’re all up and right little sooth-brother.  The inside’s all gone around and being the outsides like to try to be a whole different thing.  Ain’t that a righteous wonder.”  And then he smiles at you, sweet as anything, and goes back to turning a perfectly good grubloaf paste into an inedible mash.  
  
You twitch.  Your claws jab into the soft flesh of your hands.  You could—make him fix it.  If you badgered him a little more, he’s such a damn atrocity of a troll, you could yank the garment right over his head and have him stuffed back into it correctly in two minutes, he probably wouldn’t even *defend* himself, you could—  
  
—you abscond to your shuttle and spend the next four hours composing furious mental lists of all the ways in which you are a stupid pan-scrubbed idiot who is not going to get any stupider and all the ways you could make this so much worse, and then you put on a movie and pull a blanket over your head and don’t think about what you could do at all.

You’re not very good at it.

 


	2. Karkat & Jane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[the-name-is-jane](http://the-name-is-jane.tumblr.com/) asked: First time they met Jane and Karkat?_

"I don’t like trolls," is the first thing Captain Jane Crocker says to you, looking you over with her arms folded across her chest and one eyebrow up, that creepy clone-sibling of Strider’s doing blankface at her shoulder.

Your lip curls automatically and every bit of diplomacy the Matriark ever drilled into you flops right out of your head and goes splat.  “Well, _I_ don’t like criminals.  Our lives are a god-damned fucking tragic farce woven out of our hopes and dreams, whoop-de-fucking-do.  Do you have a shuttle to lease or not?”

She stares at you silently, her glasses glinting, and you try to remember how to be a serene and composed representative of an elite guild of highly trained Companions and not a blushing, angry pillar of embarassment.  Abruptly, she smiles.  It’s still sardonic, but there’s a self-directed tweak to the humor in it.  You’re suddenly aware of how close she must be to your own age.  “I believe we can do business, Companion Vantas.  Welcome aboard the _Calliope_.”


	3. Dirk & Jane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[theunvanquishedzims](http://theunvanquishedzims.tumblr.com/) asked: Dirk and Jane, the first time he knew he'd never leave her._

"I thought I was under arrest," you say, not bothering to invest any emotion in the words.

Crocker stares you down, pure challenge.  “Do you need to not be under arrest to tell me how to break through enemy lines and get into the holding cells?”

She says it like it’s an absolutely straightforward if/then clause and the only difference the outcome will have is on her opinion of you.  You hold that blue-eyed stare a few seconds longer, just to see if she’ll flinch.  “No,” you admit.  The merest hint of a smile cracks the line of your lips—the first one in a long time, it feels like.  “But I can shoot better with my hands untied.”

Afterwards, she turns to you, covered in grime and blood from the crawl through the sewers and the ensuing firefight, and says, “I’m sorry I called you a backstabbing control freak, Private Strider,” and she’s crisp and sincere and not one smidgen propitiating and if this isn’t love it’s something a half step to the side and a thousand steps deeper.

But all you say is, “No problem, Lieutenant.  Sorry for attempting to overthrow your command.”


	4. Dirk & Jane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[asherdashery](http://asherdashery.tumblr.com/) asked: Lightning Bug AU meme - first time Jane and Dirk celebrated a birthday on the Calliope!_

"Dirk, why is my ship on fire?" Jane says, walking into the engine room  
  
"What?  Where?" You stuff the microwelder into the crook of your elbow and let your pliers clatter to the floor, rolling out from under the block. "I just fixed the wiring, it can’t be sparking—"  
  
Jane flicks her hand, frowning down at you. “I didn’t mean anything in here.  I meant why did I just pull a flaming mass of charcoal out what was formerly a very nice oven?”  
  
Oh.  Shit.  You slide off your roller to sit flat on the floor, pressing your fingers into your temples.  “It’s your birthday.”  
  
Jane’s eyebrows go up.  “You set the ship on fire for my birthday?”  
  
"I set a cake on fire for your birthday.  Apparently."  You switch to pinching the bridge of your nose, under your shades.  It doesn’t really help.  Damn it, you completely forgot the cake.  "We were getting power flickers and I came down here to sort it out and then air circulation went down."  
  
"Ah.  Well that explains why the mess hall is six feet deep in smoke."    
  
Jane looks amused, but you feel like an idiot.  You bang your head once against the wall in case the reverberations might shake you back into non-defectiveness.  “I can fix that.”  
  
"I opened the airlock."  She puts her hands on her hips, standing over you.  "Dirk.  Ship’s mechanics get years of specialized training.  You’re making do with a couple of instruction manuals and a headful of weapons and comms work.  Stop pushing yourself so darn hard already!"  
  
You pinch your brows together and stare mutely back at her because not being good enough is a pretty much the textbook scenario for when you have to push yourself harder and right now you owe her a functioning air circulation system and a new stove and an also edible damned birthday cake for her birthday gorramit.  
  
Jane glares right back.  “No.  It is not your fault that two-bit wastrel of an engineer cut out on us.  This is not your job, Dirk.”  
  
"But—"  
  
"But me no buts, mister.  It can wait." She says it with the kind of finality that carves stones.  "We’re going to go get Roxy and then we’re going into town to eat.  We’ll pick up a new stove on the way back, I’ll bake another cake, and you can get the air circulation back on line. Fair?"  
  
It’s not fair because you wanted her birthday to be perfect, you wanted to make it perfect for her, but when you open your mouth she just looks at you, stubborn and exasperated and fond, and she already knows it all, you don’t need to say anything after all.  You blow out a breath.  “Fine.  You can make me a cake for your birthday.  But only because you’re the birthday girl.” 

"Darn straight."

A tension you weren’t even aware of is unknotting behind your brows, and, okay, maybe Jane has a little bit of a point _vis a vis_ trying to fill too many roles at once.  You bump your head against her thigh and look up, imploring sad-puppy posture.  “Can I have an engineer for your birthday, please, Captain?”  
  
Jane swats at your hair. “I’m holding out for one as good as my first mate.”

"So never, then."

She swats you again.  “Tomorrow.  Tonight even.  I’ll bring home a drunk from the bar, that should do it.”

"Uncool."


	5. Dave/Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[asukaskerian](http://asukaskerian.tumblr.com/) asked: first time dave and karkat kiss??? :DDDDDDD_

"It’s not a platonic quadrant; there’s no such thing as a platonic quadrant; how does that even remotely make sense in your tiny grubfucked brain? A platonic quadrant sounds like the sort of stupid oxymoronic pile of hoofbeast shit a human would attempt because the concept of actual romance is too complex for you to wrap your pans around."  
  
"Sure, I believe you, Karkles," Dave says, and you know he’s just winding you up but you still can’t quite keep your lips from peeling back from your teeth. "You’re a big bad cuddle-delivery stud, is what you are."   
  
You press your scowl flat and fall back upon your dignity.  “I am a Registered Companion and *you* are a certified fucking douchelord.”  
  
 Dave fans at his face and fake-swoons, practically into your lap.  Your claws twitch.  “Ooh, Mr. Companion, ooh.  Pap me like one of your French girls.”  
  
You don’t give yourself time to think about it.  You just lift your hand and tap your fingers once, firm against his cheek, slide your hand up along that dark, too-soft skin to feel his jaw settle in the curve of your palm.  You lean in close—his face has gone fixed and frozen, his mouth caught forming one of his stupid endless words.  You can see your eyes reflected in those ridiculous shades, the shadow of his own eyes wide behind them.  “Settle down,” you say firmly, and you kiss the tip of his nose, sweet and pale as grubmilk.  
  
The skin against your palm flames hot. Dave flails and falls off the couch.  
  
You sit back, vindicated and smug and blushing only slightly, warm across your cheekbones.  Victory is sweet as hell.

(It’s not flirting if it’s pale because you definitely aren’t pale for him which makes it not flirting and oh god you are never telling anyone you did this.)  
  
((You still win.))


	6. Dirk & Caliborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[asukaskerian](http://asukaskerian.tumblr.com/) asked: First time Dirk and Caliborn meet face to face!_

The first time you meet Caliborn he demolishes your carefully constructed strategy by showing up in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time and pointing a gun exactly where you don’t want it to be pointing.  
  
Jane glances very briefly at the big green alien aiming an assault rifle at the back of her head. She turns back to the mercenaries you’ve got frozen under your own guns and tsks. “If you’re going to wait until we’ve already secured the cargo to develop competence you could at least try to avoid a stalemate.”  
  
"Shut your vomit trap," the cherub says behind you, mouth stretched wide to show gleaming green fangs. "Bitch."  
  
Jane’s half-smile tilts up in what you recognize as imminent danger sign and you can’t tell if the cherub is grinning or scowling but you’re absolutely certain you need to get some attention turned your way before something goes bang and so you say the first words that come into your head. “How did you get past us?”  
  
A dark green lip curls. “I was always here. It was fucking obvious. That this is where you would wind up. And then I could shoot you in the heads.”  
  
You award the alien a slight eyebrow raise over your shades. That… actually makes a very shrewd sort of sense. Assuming one has absolutely no compunctions about using the entire rest of a six man mercenary squad as cannon-fodder slash bait. You can’t decided whether to be impressed or disgusted.

In front of you, one of the remaining three mercenaries shifts restlessly toward his dropped weapon. You twitch the gun in your left hand and the man stills, growling. He sends a poisonous glare towards the cherub. “Fucking shoot them already, Cal, what are you waiting for?”  
  
"I want a bonus," the cherub says. "You all did shit-nothing. I want a full five hundred."  
  
Beside you, you can *feel* Jane’s smile turn positively elfin. “Good gracious,” she says. “Are they paying you a flat rate?”  
  
From that point it’s probably inevitable that three hours later would find you rendezvousing with Roxy and Jake back at the ship, ransacked cargo and a foul-tempered, heavily-armed alien you don’t really trust in tow.  
  
The cherub steps into the aft bay, looks around, and shifts demeanors entirely. The surly set of muscular shoulders fades, long-lashed red and green eyes go wide and interested, and the scowl dissolves entirely. “It’s a *lovely* ship.”  
  
The first time you meet Calliope she proceeds to fold her clawed hands neatly in front of her, turn a close-lipped but still fangy smile on Jane, and add sweetly, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain Crocker. Let’s discuss additional compensation and benefits.”


	7. Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[theunvanquishedzims](http://theunvanquishedzims.tumblr.com/) asked: Lightning Bug meme: First time Karkat refused a client_

The thing is, you’d been afraid you were going to lose your temper, been worrying about it and gritting your teeth and running through your lessons on composure, but in the end you feel quite calm when you shove your client’s face into the table.

Your internal freak out commences immediately afterwards, but by that point you’ve pretty effectively drawn your battle lines and shown your horns and so there’s not much to do but troll up and see this chucklefarce dramedy through to the end. The little internal chant of  _fuckfuckfuck karkat you fucking fuck up_ running through your head is just the background noise of your life, really.

You put some distance between the two of you first thing, so you’re already out of reach and into the most open part of the room when she comes up snarling and furious. You stand straight and unmoving and try to pull a confident pose out of your ass—poised but not defensive, a sickle obvious in one hand but not yet raised.  The red folds of your robes flutter into stillness around you as murder-bright eyes turn your way.

She regains control of herself almost immediately—she’s pissed but not raging, and this one’s all about the control issues, the personal power through status and superiority and subjugation.  After all, hadn’t that been the purpose of every solicitous gesture all evening, every condescending touch and word?  Each one carefully calculated to put you in your place, remind you how much less you are, how inferior.

Fuck, you should have smashed her face and left hours ago, the minute it became apparent she was more interested in playing headgames with the lowblood than anything approaching a pile.  You should have left, you shouldn’t have come, you should have screened her application in the first place instead of second-guessing yourself around your reservations in an effort not to offend a high-ranking official.

You’re  _pretty_ sure you’ve offended her.

She touches a hand to the indigo blood sheeting down from her nose, licks blood from her lips and considers the color on her fingertips almost thoughtfully.  She’s still and reserved, but her eyes on you are flat and cold as a medterrorist considering a hopvermin pinned down for dissection.  “How _dare_ you?”  She says it like an observation, like you’re an animal that’s done a particularly surprising and rude trick in public.

You flash your teeth, the white-noise whoosh of adrenaline and fury thrumming through your head until you’re very nearly giddy.  “Really fucking easily, as it happens.” Calm, steady. You know the words from here.  There’s a protocol for this, and you are the representative of an intergalactic organization recognized by the Imperium and the Alliance.  She doesn’t have the right to touch you.  You have a dignity outside yourself to uphold.  The novelty of that is bracing and terrifying all at once.

You draw yourself up. “Senatormentor Carvel, I am terminating this session.  As per our contract, you will be refunded in full.  If you have a complaint you may take it up with the Guild.”

"I will certainly do so," she says, and her voice is detached. "You clearly require the supervisory influence of cooler blood." Mutant, she doesn’t say.  Defective.

You hear it anyway.  

Enough.  Get out, get out, just get the fuck out of here before your tenuous control of the situation explodes in your face and someone dies horribly.  Probably you.  You turn in a swirl of red, using the movement of cloth to disguise your own quick movements, the speed of your steps toward the door.

She makes no motion to hinder you, doesn’t even step out from behind the table, and that just amps your nerves up higher, until you’re so tense you feel like you could launch into orbit.

You’ve got your hand on the door handle, your back fully turned when she makes her move.  There’s no sound, only the barest flicker of displaced air against your skin.  She appears almost behind you.  She’s faster than you expected; her hand closes on your wrist even as you twist to intercept her, your sickle halting midair between you. Her lips quirk up slightly.  For just a moment you feel the pressure of that grip, printing itself on your bones.  

Then your _second_ sickle hisses through the air, whipping out of the folds of your robe to slice the air where her wrist used to be, and she’s dropped your hand and bolted back a yard.

There’s real surprise in her eyes before they go flat again, careful for the first time. She crossed a line and she knows it.  She just didn’t think you’d be capable of holding her to it.

Your grip flexes on your sickles, your weight shifting minutely towards the balls of your feet.  You can see the calculation passing under that blank grey mask of an expression.  This previous gesture was just an attempt to intimidate you, a dalliance, really, but now she’s got to be weighing the odds, wondering if she can make the problem go away entirely.  Your panicking backbrain gives her tolerable odds.

Your wrist aches.

You are fucking fed up to here with this entire shitheap of a situation.  You turn the stakes all the way up.

"Congratu-fucking-lations, Senatormentor.  You just assaulted a Companion, and well outside the boundaries of a contract.  Your prize is a black mark in the Client Registry and my utter heaving contempt.  Care to try for one of our many fun and violent supplementary prizes?"

The moment spins like a coin on point, drawing the tension into a thread—

She splays her hands, empty, placating, and shows you a politician’s smile.  “Empress, no, Companion.  You mistake me. I can see you are quite distressed and out of sorts.”  Jumping at shadows, her words imply.  Poor flighty lowblood.  Her tone is all sincere concern, her eyes gone wide, and you could choke on the miasma of feigned innocence.  “I thought perhaps I could provide you with an escort for your journey home. I should hate for you to do yourself a harm.”

You curl your lips back.  “Fuck you so very much,” you say.  “I hope you choke on your bulge and die.”

You leave.

You’re still riding high on the after-effects of anger and adrenaline when you make it back to your hivesystem, shaky and jangling and furious all through.  You ghost through the halls to the door of your rented block, grateful not to encounter any of your transient neighbors.  You feel like your skin’s been put on inside out and the thought of facing anyone—Szthak hounding you about mailgrub deliveries or Egbert with his obnoxiously well-meaning cheer—is fully intolerable.  You don’t know what you want right now, to burn off this energy or curl up and hide, fight or flight, noise or silence, but you know you can’t stand the idea of being this shaky vulnerable raw around other people.

In the end, you sit down and write your incident report.  The doubts are creeping in now.  You followed all the protocols, you had every right to reject her, but you still made an epic grub-fucked mess of the situation.  You couldn’t have fucked that up much more if you’d _tried_ and now the Guild’s going to have migraine-inducing mess of a political tangle to deal with, all thanks to your incompetence.  Handling difficult personalities is practically your job description.  

Your report gets revised a dozen times as you try to find some combination of words that doesn’t make you sound unprofessional or hysterical or weak or flippant or—in the end you settle for a blunt and barebones accounting, leave the ‘requested action’ section blank for the Guild to decide, and send the document zipping away through the aether to Guild hivequarters before you can chew your own claws off.

You put your favorite movie on, treat yourself to a bowl of grubcrisps, and you’re curled up on the couch failing entirely to take in anything on the screen when the message alert on your husktop beeps.  You freeze.  You didn’t expect to hear back from the Guild for days. Worst-case scenarios start piling up like a rockslide—they’re pissed that you caused a diplomatic incident; they’ve decided that you can’t handle it; they’ve decide you’re a fuck up; they’re revoking your probationary status; you’re going to be kicked out; you’re going to be _culled_.

You take all your panic, shove it down into a tight little box, and sit on it.  It’s sort of like holding explosives in your thoracic cavity.  So just another day in the life, really.

Scowling, you stomp over to the husktop and stab your finger on the accept button.  Two files pop up.

You scan the annotated incident report quickly, mentally braced, like yanking a stinger from a wound.  It’s—oh.  Oh, they accepted it.    

Dazed, you read back through the report more carefully.  There’s only one alteration, to the section you left blank.  The requested action section.

'Senatormentor Jadiss Carvel to be banned from all future Guild contracts,' it reads.  'Black mark in client registry.'

It’s stamped ‘approved,’ and beside that, in the authorizing agent field you see the triple arches and curving tail of the Matriark’s own seal.

You sit down in the desk chair, blinking rapidly.

You’re not…used to this.  The part where strangers despise you and want to kill you horribly, sure, that’s familiar.  

But you’ve never had something bigger than yourself at your back, you’ve never had a safety net, you’ve never felt like a valued part of something.

It’s…nice.

It’s devastating.

After a moment, you remember the second file, and click through to find that you’ve also received a personal note.

You’re not sure you want to read it.  You read it anyway.

G+o+od j+ob, dear, but d+o w+ork +on y+our f+oll+ow thr+ough, you read, in the Matriark’s distinctive hand.

I’ve taken the liberty +of c+orrecting y+our paperw+ork.  I expect t+o see great things fr+om y+ou.

-♍

The screen goes kind of blurry for a moment.

You’re not crying.  You’re just.  Lubricating your eyebulbs.

After a few minutes you set the files to print, and march yourself into the tiny nutrition block to put together something to eat that isn’t grubcrisps.  You can feel the ravenous grumbling of your gastric sac now, demanding actual sustenance.  Maybe a beetlesteak.  Maybe you’ll go out.

Happiness feels almost exactly like terror except better in every way.


	8. Dirk & Jake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked: lightning bug meme first time Dirk and Jake kiss??? :3
> 
> _A/N: haha I see what you did there, anon. Nice try. ;)_

"What’s _wrong_ with me?”

You blink sort of dazedly at Jake, reaching up to slide your shades back into place where they’ve come awry.  You’re no expert or anything but this is not the follow-up you tend to expect after being ambush-kissed by an attractive South Asian engineer in the mess hall.

But Jake’s staring at you with his face scrunched up in distress, his own glasses crooked, dark hair mussed, lips still pink and swollen, and—okay, enough, time to function on all cylinders, here, Strider.  Get your head back in the game. You trace your lower lip with your tongue as you sit back, groping blindly for something useful and coherent to say.  “I’m going to need you to clarify that statement a bit, bro.  What kind of problem are we talking about here?”

“Why the devil can’t I make this kissing tomfoolery come out right?”

You swipe a fallen strand of hair from your face, only to come to the realization that the usual precision order of your gelled hair is probably a complete loss for the day.  Okay then.  “I’d venture to say that you’re doing all right from this end.”

Jake’s unhappy face just gets more unhappy and oh.  Oh.

That’s… disappointing.  But.  Right.  You’re cool.  You try to put a little expression back into your blankface.  Something calm and reassuring.  “Sometimes it just doesn’t click, bro. Attraction’s not some magical paint-by-numbers.  Maybe now’s not the time or maybe I’m just not the right person for you to test drive the tongue-tangomobile.”  
  
“But it didn’t work with Roxy or Jane either.”

Wow, you ranked last in Jake’s experimental run-through of the crew.  You are so flattered.

Still, it’s hard to muster up any real anger in the face of that starving-kicked-puppy-in-the-rain expression.  You remind yourself that however much of his life he’s spent looking out for himself, in terms of social interactions Jake’s still very young.  Hell, in terms of actual years Jake doesn’t exactly qualify as grey-haired.  What were you even doing with your life at 19? 

Right, fuck, you were getting shot at by Alliance soldiers with Jane, back when you both still thought you could win a war that had already been lost.  Amazing how a half dozen years can take the sparkle off the world.

You finger comb your messy hair to buy some time and then raise an eyebrow at him.  “Jake.  The ability or inability to enjoyably get your mouth-mack on with random people at any given moment is not a referendum on your character.  This is not a true/false question.  The test is not going to be graded.  You can just go with what works for you.  Maybe wait until you’re feeling it.”

"That’s what Cap said."

“The Captain knows her shit,” you affirm.  (Jane did not warn you about this. Jane is an evil, evil woman.)

“But I _am_ feeling it, dagnabit!” Jake bursts out.  “I really like you!”

“And Jane,” you say, dryly.  “And Roxy.”

“I really like _all_ of you,” Jake says with utter sincerity, dark green eyes earnest and intent as a bullet.  Dear fucking god you are not equipped to deal with Jake English.  “A lot.  You’re all—you’re all wonderfully swell people and I’m frightfully fond of you and it’s _supposed to work_.  In films people are amazing and you kiss them and it’s perfect and wonderful unless it turns out they were secretly an evil chap all along and you were supposed to wind up with someone else.”

You blink helplessly.  “…Movies are not really a good life guide, bro.”

Jake’s lips turn down and his brows furrow. “I just don’t _get it_ ,” he says, miserably.  “I can’t muster up the right feelings about _anybody_ and I don’t know why and I don’t know what I should _do.”_

“I think—“ you begin, and stop yourself.  You bite the tip of your tongue and forcibly reverse this track.  “I think this is something you need to work out for yourself,” you say instead.

Jake frowns at you, dissatisfied.

Blowing out a breath you lean back on the table behind you.  “Look.  I am not Answers Guy.  I do not have the wisdom of the ages to dispense.  Pretty much the only universal truth I have ever managed to scrabble out of the rocky soil of Real Life Lessons is that Dirk Strider is in no fucking way certified to be attempting to fix other living beings.  I have surrendered my Fixing People license on account of reckless endangerment and mad ridonk levels of collateral damage.  There is nothing but tears and heartbreak the end of that ride.  The theme park is closed.  The tickets are refunded.  The carnies have gone home.”

Jake’s eyebrows have been twisting steadily closer together as you speak.  “I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, there, mate.  I’ve always found you to be a very together fellow.”

“No.  You do not want me getting bossy with your shit.  That’s how friendships get shivved.  That is a dead end route.”

“Well.  If you say so.”  He shifts his weight a few times, still frowning, before he sinks onto the bench next to you.  He pulls up one knee, wrapping his arms around it.  After a silence, he sighs.  Sad puppy has evolved into orphan baby seal.  Oh no.

“Hey.” 

He doesn’t look up.

“You’ll figure it out,” you tell him.

He grumbles an incoherent noise.

You consider his moping countenance sideways from behind your shade for a few more moments.  You jab him with your elbow.  “Really.  Jake.  I do not know why you are stressing about this.  There are no wrong answers.  There is literally no way you can do anything but succeed at this task.  You’ve got this.”

“I just want to be _normal,_ ” he says, sinking his chin onto his knee.  His words are wistful.

“Didn’t you ever watch an after-school special, bro?  There is no normal.  That’s what they mean when they say ‘everybody’s special.’  It’s a code for ‘nobody has any fucking clue what they’re doing.’  You’ve just got to do you and see where it takes you.  Follow your heart, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Huh,” Jake says, and actually appears to be contemplating this.  “You think?”

“Only damn thing that’s ever worked for me.”  Of course, most people tend to find you off-putting.  Whatever.

“Huh,” Jake says again, frowning.

“And maybe stop seeking all your enlightenment from whatever piece of garbage has just been churned out by the galactic media complex.”

“They’re good movies,” Jake says automatically, brow still furrowed with thought.  “They’re fun.”

“They’re junk designed to sell merchandise and feed you lies about the human condition, Jake.”

“I like them.”

“You have terrible taste.  I harbor the fond delusion that you just don’t know any better.”

Jake takes a friendly swipe at you and you duck the blow.  He makes a face.  “You know…”  He cocks his head, a grin slowly creeping up.  “I do believe you’re attempting to fix me, Mr. Strider.”

You blink twice.  “…Fuck.”

Jake laughs at you and claps a hand on your shoulder, leaning in companionably.  His smile is warm and knowing.  “You, sir, are a stand-up gentleman and a true chum.  I’m really grateful to have your advice.”  His grin turns up a few watts.  “And I shan’t pay any heed to any spurious nonsense and slander you may dispense in the midst of said advice.”

“Thank you,” you say dryly.  But you’re sort of touched.

He beams, full voltage smile with a dash of mocking humor sneaking in to crook the corners.  It hits you at close range.  “What are mates for?”  

(You could kiss him again.) 

((…Nope, no, bad idea, worst plan, stop that right now, Dirk Strider.))

“You seem to be feeling sunnier,” you say instead, leaning back on your elbows and raising one eyebrow.

“You know, I am!” Jake says.  “I feel positively chipper and gay!  I reckon you’re right and I’ve been making a consarned fuss about the whole business for no good reason.  You’re all my pals and all the rest will—will just sort itself out.  Whichever which way.  ‘Should-be’s are a damn silly thing to be working myself into a lather over.”  He claps his hands against his pants legs as he rises to his feet, a brushing away motion.

“…Glad to hear it.”  You cock your head.  “Should I take it you’re tabling the surprise tonsil inspections or should I post some kind of memo on the whiteboard?”

Jake colors.  “No!  I mean yes.  I mean no.  Definitely applying the kitchen table to the matter henceforth.” He rubs his reddened face, shuffling. “I suppose that was a bit much to be springing on a fellow without warning.”

“I think the warning was the part where you ran up and shouted ‘Dirk, I need to kiss you, okay?’”

“Oh, hellfire.”  His tan skin is red all the way back to his ears now.  He glances around the room like he might find some kind of spaceship-dwelling wildlife to create a diversion and rescue him from this situation.  “I was in a bit of a kerfluffle,” he confesses.

“I had gathered,” you say blandly. 

Jake steals another guilty look your direction, the picture of hangdog uncertainty.

You take mercy on him, rolling your eyes over the top of your shades.  You wave a hand that’s only a little more dismissive than you actually feel.  “Don’t worry about it.”  You slant a smirk.  “Always happy to do a bro a solid.”

“Oh.  Well!  Excellent!”  Jake relaxes, taking you at your word as always.  It’s a ridiculous thing to do, so you don’t know why you find it so endearing. 

Jake is just… hard not to like. 

“I’m glad we got this all straightened out and put behind us!”

Even if he is an oblivious idiot.

Abruptly, he dives forward, sweeping you out of your seat and into a bone-crushing hug.  “Thanks for listening, Dirk.”  With a final squeeze, he sets you back on your feet and pats you twice on the shoulder. 

He bounces off in the direction of his engine room and you watch him go, abstractly grateful you never encountered any kind of Jake English back when you were a stupid, horny teenager.  Because, damn, you would have wrecked yourself on that boy.

Fortunately you are now older and wiser and immune to stupid decisions.

…you’re also checking out his ass.

With a stern mental shake you pack up the guns you were cleaning on the table and abandon the field.  You have a pressing need to track down Jane and Roxy and strangle them.


	9. Porrim & Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Anonymous asked: Karkat and Porrim first time pale Companions lessons?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _paleCompanion!kat, Guild Matriark Porrim, OMC_

"Ow," Ferris says mildly.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck I’m sorry, I’m fucking this up, I—"

"Companion Vantas," you put in, short-circuiting the rant before it can escalate into a self-sabotaging guilt spiral. Your voice is calm. The trainee-Companion you are overseeing is less so.

"Right," Karkat says, "I know, right, I’m in charge." He flails, gathers himself. His face is tight with the determined panickiness of a kind-hearted person who has been Made Responsible for Others. "Fuck, hang on." In a flurry of movement, he manages to disentangle his neckline from Ferris’s horn without further bone-bends jabbed in anyone’s bulge area. Karkat sits back, blinking rapidly. He’s showing all his teeth.

Ferris blinks up at him from the pile, compliantly still.

"Right," Karkat repeats, and blows out a breath. He immediately sucks it back in again. "I am completely on top of this situation; this is me, calm and handling things because I am a fucking professional. And in charge. Uh. Shoosh." He pats awkwardly at Ferris. It’s light, almost perfunctory, but Ferris rumbles softly in response to the touch, thrumming encouragement.

Karkat’s cheeks flush with color, his mutant hemotype making the reaction unusually vivid. He looks pleased with himself, though. A little of the hesitancy fades from his posture.

Ferris is your preferred Guild member for these practical sessions. He’s above average size for a jadeblood, large enough to resemble some of your more typical high-blooded clients. Intimidating. He’s also as steady-tempered a troll as you’ve known and consistently gentle and forebearing with nervous trainees.

Of course, most Guild trainees reach this point in their apprenticeship with sweeps of Guild lessons behind them. You don’t induct outsiders beyond a certain age.

You have made very, very few exceptions to this rule since you assumed Guild leadership. You are responsible for many lives. You cannot afford to make mistakes.

You don’t think Karkat Vantas will be a mistake.

He is, however, still wound tight with anxiety and you don’t think it’s entirely first-time embarassment. You watch him, eyes assessing. He’s focused and intent even through his nerves, his brow furrowed into a thundercloud of concentration. He remembers his lessons well but runs through them like he’s completing the steps from a surgical intervention manual, or possibly a bomb defusion. Like he’s expecting catastrophic fallout at the first deviation.

Ferris shifts slightly, just a stretching of stiff shoulders. Karkat jitters back into panicky damage control mode.

"—shit, did I do that right is this okay should I—"

"Companion," you interrupt, again.

"I know, I know, I’m in charge." He sounds equal parts harried and resolved, the kind of determination that steps in front of bullets. You and Ferris exchange affectionate looks over his head. Karkat could probably bully through this entire encounter on that combination of adrenaline and stubborn nature alone. He’d get by well enough, you’re sure.

You prefer better.

It is your job to find that better for your students. For all your Guild members. You are their Matriark.

You move in closer, slow and easy so as not to trigger anyone’s defensive reflexes. You touch his shoulder once, to make sure he knows you’re there, and then lean in close, pressing your thorax supportively against his back. He’s very warm against you, his muscles coiled into tight cords. You smooth the silk at his shoulders. “Steady, dear. You’ve got this.”

Karkat grumbles but does relax marginally, leans momentarily into that support. His shoulders remain tense. “I’m in charge,” you hear him mutter again, under his breath, like a whiplash.

You tilt your head, thoughtful. You find the neccessary correction. “No, dear.” Your voice is warm. You kiss his temple, briefly, let him feel the affection in your touch. Then you withdraw. “You’re in control.”

Karkat stills. Blinks. “Oh. Oh,” he says. Revelation. He looks down at Ferris like he can see a puzzle box unfolding in front of his eyes, like the lock of unseen chains just clicked and dropped away from his wrists. The anxiety drains slowly out of his frame, still present but settling low around him like an undisturbed pool. There’s a new confidence creeping in to replace it, a new surety in his touch when he lays a hand alongside Ferris’s jaw. He runs his palm up to cup his cheekbone. His hold is firm, his fingers brushing in new-hatched curiosity. Jade-green eyes catch easily in his own.

"Shh," Karkat says, low and soft, wondering-certain, and his mutant eyes seem lit from within like incandescent flames. "I’ve got you."

Ferris purrs.

You smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! The main series is collected [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/series/67093)
> 
> Feel free to drop by and talk to me on [my tumblr](http://curlicuecal.tumblr.com). The tag for this meme is [here.](http://curlicuecal.tumblr.com/tagged/firsts-meme/chrono)


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